1907 Meat Company - Featured Member

Posted by Made in Oklahoma on 07/24/2017

Tell us a bit about how you got started?

Adam Gribben, owner, CEO and Chief Delivery Van Driver of 1907 Meat Co., is an OSU alum who worked in Dallas for several years and came up to Stillwater as often as he could, but wanted a reason to come back to Stillwater permanently. Stillwater is an agricultural powerhouse, but Adam noticed that there was a lack of local meat available to local consumers. During that time, Adam was also casually reading about modern meat production and decided to do something different.

Adam decided that a whole-animal butcher shop would be the best way to get Oklahoma meat to Oklahomans, and after a couple of years of more reading, learning and planning, 1907 Meat Co. opened in Downtown Stillwater in October 2016.

That’s amazing! So the whole company is just different from most?

Yes! First off, we source as much of our meat as possible from local producers – there’s no middle man. We have farmers and ranchers all over Oklahoma who provide us with quality meat, from May’s Ranch in Stillwater to Thomas Land & Cattle in Meno. One of our major pig farmers is also a butcher in our shop, so he is very familiar with our products.

In addition to providing an outlet for local meat, Adam also wanted to help local farmers and ranchers by sourcing directly from them and linking their names and faces with the meat that customers see in the case. It gives the consumer more of a buy-in — they know they’re helping local farmers and ranchers when they buy local. We even have photos of our farmers and ranchers on the wall in our shop, so there is a real name-face connection.

So the company can also be really personable? There’s no questioning the meat or the butcher?

We try to be as transparent as possible, so much so that there’s a window into the butcher room so customers can see exactly what our butchers are working on at any point!

We visit each farm or ranch before partnering with them to make sure the animals are cared for and have good living conditions. The animals are pasture-fed and are either finished on the pasture or on a grain ration at the ranch. None of them receive hormones or antibiotics for growth. The animals are harvested at the slaughter facility in the Robert M. Kerr Food and Agricultural Products Center on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater. We transport the meat to our shop to be broken down into steaks, roasts, pork chops, etc.

Our top two butchers have more than 40 years of combined experience, and we have three butcher apprentices.

Can you tell me your process with the meat and burgers that make it incredible?

We dry-age all of our beef for two-three weeks, including the hamburger meat, so the water in the meat is reduced and the rich beefy flavor is amplified. We have several varieties of burgers with extra ingredients in the patties — bacon cheddar, hickory bleu cheese, jalapeno pepper jack and DNR (made with Coop Ale Works DNR Belgian-style dark lager and cheese).

We only serve burgers on Fridays, and serve other sandwiches during the week that utilize our meat, like the Cuban, the BBQ Beef, or the Grilled Chicken Sandwich. We also serve dinner Tuesday-Friday, featuring burgers, sandwiches and a few vegetarian and vegan options, and weekend brunch, where you can get anything from steak and eggs to pecan pancakes.